You Fix The Budget

@ Chaos: I assume it's something simliar to wellfare. I'm not certain.

Another option would be increasing tax revenue by 20%
and decreasing spending by 20%:

So it would look like this:

Total Taxes: 2,381,000,000,000
+ 476,200,000,000
= 2,857,200,000,000

Total Spending: 3,550,000,000
- 710,000,000
= 2,840,000,000,000

We'd have a surplus while still being able to keep every government program just at a weaker level.

I thought welfare was only in state budgets. I could be wrong though.

A lot of that ***is supplemented with federal money too. I'm not sure how much, or where in the budget.

It comes out of the Department of health and human services iirc.

So what did your balanced budget look like? What are the consequences for not balancing the budget?

Look again, your cuts would require a loss of jobs.

I have two proposed plans based on what people think the main purpose of a government budget right now should be.

1.) If you want to erase the deficit and start paying down our national debt asap so that the interest payments don't start eating tons of tax revenue, then you should push massive spending cuts as well as tax hikes.

The National debt is standing at:

My plan is 606 Billion surplus by 2015 and 1,680 Billion surplus by 2030 So by 2030 we might be a Debt free nation considering nothing changes in the world for 20 years. Yeah good luck with that.

2.) If you just want to stop adding to the national Debt, but don't want to hurt job growth in the U.S. (this is most politicians) Then you can't cut back on spending too much or you lay off a lot of workers that get payed by Uncle Sam. This includes government workers from soldiers to private contractors and everything in between. At the same time you don't want to tax everyone to death or you'll cut back on consumer spending which negatively effects job growth.

This is what I have for my second solution. Balanced Budget with 50% tax increase 50% spending cuts. Surplus of 87 billion by 2015 and 99 billion by 2030 This tries not to effect job growth too much and still maintain a balanced budget along with global perspective. Not too much wiggle room here though so change can throw a wrench in the plans pretty easy.

You still haven't solved the problem. You're trying to support something that isn't supportable. You're going to have to cut most government programs and not tax if it's avoidable.

The government is just like a business. If they business is built upon failed budgets and failed spending policies then it's going to go bankrupt. Right now you're not changing the policies you're just prolonging them while forcing people to pay more.

First off government is not just like a business. The government has access to many financial tools that a business does not.

Second of all what problem would you specifically be addressing?

The size of the government's involvement. You're plan here while balancing the budget is making government even bigger. Big government with committment to things like SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, and many other benefits are what got us in the deficit. The solution is downsizing not upsizing. Upsizing does not take inflation and growth into consideration. Downsizing is safer because it is a smaller ratio of government committment vs availiable resources.

My 2nd stab is a lot more realistic.

I increased government's size? What programs did I create in these pretend budgets? Both Plans actually had spending cuts. Did you even click on them?

Those things have been around well before you were even born. To think that you can suddenly cut or severely cut those programs is crazy.

Thank you for reaffirming EXACTLY why we are in this problem. Kudos. As long as we believe that statement you just made we are ***.

You taxed more while giving the people less. That would be like:

Mcdonalds raised the price of the Dollar Menu to $2 and now you get half the food.

It increases the size by increasing demands, and it also *** people over.

The people have spent in the red for years now. I don't consider it "*** them over" to expect them to pay at some point for the benefits they have received.

I also don't consider the government collecting taxes to pay down the national debt as big government. The big government, small government argument is simply a wedge issue. The size of government largely stays stagnant. What the government spends it's money on changes, but that's about it.

Oh really? Might want to take some history classes. You're really out of touch.

Care to name who in the past 100 years has been a small government hero?

He writing some long response or is he having trouble answering that I wonder?...hmmmm.

You have a better chance of removing the word 'god' from the pledge of allegiance.

I haven't taken a look at the app or w/e but I will probably do so on Monday at work...but I'd say eliminating SSI, Medicare, Medicaid may not work for the ones who previously had it but you can always just stop it for X generation.
like babies from X date no longer have that option...something like that maybe?
just so it's not removing stuff from people in real time and such lol.

Seems to me me whats proposed is mostly crap.

"Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013"..The easy out for $562 billion, which doesn't really describe how its accomplished, is just one of many many problems with this thing. Others are explained in a way that makes them seem more appealing than most would find them if implemented for real. People hate tax and we've all wanted the government to stop wasting money for years..So it would look like you should cut things and not increase taxes right(ignoring for the moment a lot of those "increases" are actually just reverting to what they already were)? One thing not accounted for is how fast your decisions would be undone. You wanna pull troops? Surprise not long after your budget passes someone will be starting the process stopping/reversing/sending more to make up for those you are about to pull out. The reality is as soon as you balance it, someone else will begin work to unbalance it.

Even so, I can make a mostly stable* budget with what they have on that webpage that makes a surplus. And even without the "easy out" and even make it look alright on paper. But it wouldn't be pleasant to actually live with out in real life.

Way more complicated than just multiple choice.

*stable being define as less likely to be ripped to shreds immediately.


edit:
Hadn't read this post before posting. This here what J said right here bolded x1000.

It is certainly a big problem. Unfortunately it's the one we must overcome or succumb to.

Ronald Reagan

We definately need more :/

You must know a lot about Ronald Reagan. Do you remember what his Government spending as a percent of GDP looked like?

It was mostly defense spending which was required because of the cold war. I hope you arent really gonna insult the man for fighting a war.

In terms of government aid and spending on entitlement programs he cut everything by a shitload.

Or how about his war on drugs? That's small government is it?

So we shouldn't enforce laws? Why would we have government? Do you even think before you type?